Solvent-free synthesis of mesoporous carbon employing KIT-6 as hard template for removal of aqueous rhodamine B

Herein, we report a new solvent-free method for preparation of mesoporous carbons using mesoporous silica KIT-6 as hard template. Unlike the conventional nanocasting method, the filling of carbon precursor was simply achieved by heat treatment of the mixture containing glucose and KIT-6 in the absence of any solvents. The combining characterizations indicate that mesoporous carbons have been successfully synthesized and the mesoporous structure could be tuned by changing the ratios of glucose to KIT-6. Under optimized conditions, the adsorption capacity of mesoporous carbons was recorded (the adsorption capacity of MC-0.125 is 191mg/g with the RhB concentration of 20mg/L). The percentage of removal was found to be 95.68% and 92.58% for MC-0.125 and MC-0.25, respectively. The adsorption isotherm of RhB onto MC-0.125 follows Freundlich isotherm model and the adsorption kinetics follows pseudo-second-order with adsorption capacity of 218mg/g.